Such fiber termination units are commonly installed in homes as an end station of an optical fiber network. Optical fiber networks are constructed to make it possible to transport high quantities of data at high speeds and are, e.g., used for offering Internet access, telephony and/or radio and TV services. Originally, optical fibers were mainly used for transporting data between a central main station and distribution stations in the neighborhoods. In the distribution stations, optical signals are converted to electrical signals (and vice versa) and forwarded to users in homes and/or offices. Installation and configuration of the equipment providing this conversion and connecting the equipment to the optical and electrical cables is done by specialized engineers who have been trained for this.
In recent years it has become increasingly usual to bring the optical fibers all the way to the home or office (FttH—Fiber to the Home). A fiber termination unit (FTU) as described above may be attached to the wall, close to where one or more optical fibers enter the home or are planned to enter the home. The optical fiber is then accommodated in the fiber termination unit. The user's telephone, PC, TV or radio cannot be connected to the fiber termination unit directly. If a user wants to use the optical fiber network for a specific data service, a dedicated network termination unit is to be connected to the optical fiber in the fiber termination unit. Different network termination units are used to facilitate for different services.
In a FTU there are means for supporting the incoming ground cable containing the incoming optical fibers. Furthermore the FTU accommodates for a number of optical connectors with fiber pigtails. The incoming optical fibers are to be connected to these fiber pigtails. This requires a trained technician or installer with special skills and equipment, since the fibers are very fragile and alignment accuracy is very strict. The most commonly used technique for connecting the fibers is by fusion splicing. The overlength of the optical fiber is stored in a means for fiber management, which is a subpart of the FTU. The optical connector(s) are placed in such a way that they can connect to a NTU.
Each time a user wants to subscribe to a new service, an engineer may be needed for installing a new network termination unit. Some of these problems have already been solved by previous Genexis inventions for easing the connection of the optical fibers to the fiber and/or network termination units. A currently available fiber termination unit is used in Genexis' CORE product line. The CORE Advanced uses a universal fiber termination unit with two interfaces for connecting a respective incoming optical fiber to a network termination unit. It allows connecting the fiber termination unit to, e.g., a first network termination unit providing a data connection to the Internet and a second network termination unit for receiving media broadcasts (e.g. TV or radio). It is an advantage of this fiber termination unit that it is based on an open interface. The so-called universal fiber termination unit (UFTU) can be combined with network termination units of different network operators or service providers. When a user decides to subscribe to a new service or a different service provider, the corresponding new network termination unit will be compatible with the universal fiber termination unit and can be installed easily. It is, e.g., foreseen that in the near future there may be no need anymore for a TV receiver module for receiving broadcasted TV, making the second optical fiber available for other data services.
Although its flexibility is a very desirable aspect of the universal fiber termination unit, the modular aspect also leads to an important disadvantage, i.e. the size of the unit. A universal fiber termination unit on which the two network termination units can be installed has a width of about 20 cm, which might be too much for being placed unnoted in some corner of the room.